370 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
ty coiitbs will bo valuable for another year. Best stocks 
now will show bees between all the combs. The strength 
of the stock is best ascertained in the morning. The ex¬ 
amination for foul brood can be better made in the mid¬ 
dle of the day. Take bees from stocks too light to win¬ 
ter, and set the combs away to freeze. Early swarms put 
into such would be likely to swarm again, or make more 
surplus. 
Swarms going to tlie Woods.— J. B. Ctineo 
wishes to know what may be done to paevent a swarm 
from going to the woods, when it is disposed to do so 
after hiving.—Keep the hive shaded and cool, and close 
to the bottom board, except a half inch in front. If a 
difficult case, set in the cellar for forty-eight hours and 
give, perhaps, a pound of honey. 
Bee Feeder.—I am using a new feeder, in some re¬ 
spects like Harrison’s patent. Whether it is really cov¬ 
ered by the patent or not I cannot say. Make a wooden 
box without a bottom, somewhere about 8 by 10 inches, 
and 2 inches deep. Nail over the top a piece of good 
muslin, leaving it loose cnongh to sag down in the mid¬ 
dle nearly or quite to the lower edges of the sides of the 
box—if intending to use it on the top of box hives, it 
ought not to hang down quite so low. Now yon can set 
this feeder, muslin side uppermost, on the top of a box 
hive, having opened the holes, or directly on the tops of 
the frames of a movable comb hive. Pour the honey or 
syrup on the concave muslin, and the bees will take it 
from the under side. Coyer the whole apparatus so as to 
secure it from robbers. * 
Horse Papers for Farmers.—Ho. 9. 
The following letter is a specimen of many 
that have been received: “ You speak at some 
length about blooded horses, and mention that 
they may be bought for about $500. If not too 
much trouble, write me where such a horse can 
be bought of honest and reliable men. The 
stallions kept in this county are mostly of the 
Hambletonian breed, and stand at from $50 to 
$100;— grandsons of the old horse at that. I 
mentioned to an old horseman what a horse 
could stand for, and he said, ‘ A man who would 
bring a thorough-bred, and stand him at dung- 
lull prices, ought to be tarred and feathered. 1 
That would be the general feeling towards any 
one who would break up the monopoly, which 
is holding good stock so high that few feel able 
to pay the prices demanded, and so keep on 
raising Lunk-hcad stock that is seldom worth 
more than $150 to $200. If I had a thorough¬ 
bred horse here, I could get $15 easy for all the 
mares he could cover.” 
The only thing I can pretend to do in these 
papers is to set forth sound principles, and to ad¬ 
vocate right practices—which are important to 
all my readers. I cannot act as a guide for 
those who wish to buy or to sell. This is a 
question that affects only individual readers, and 
I have no right to occupy space which belongs 
to all, in advertising either the wants or the 
wares of a few. 
I am not altogether in sympathy with the 
spirit that raises the cry of “monopoly!” 
against those who ask high prices, whether for 
the use of a stallion or for any thing else. If the 
maxim holds good anywhere, it holds good in 
farming, that “a thing is worth what it will 
fetch.” Mr. Jones would like to get the service 
of Mr. Brown’s horse for $10—other people pay 
him $50. So, Mr. Jones says Mr. Brown is a 
monopolist. Suppose wheat was worth $5 a 
bushel, would Mr. Jones sell his wheat for a dol¬ 
lar because it is the work of “ monopoly ” that 
makes bread so high that the poor must half 
starve ?—We do not recall an instance of his do¬ 
ing this. If J. thinks a good horse can be kept 
at less than B.’s prices, let him get a good ani¬ 
mal and set up an opposition. This is the only 
way that has yet been discovered by which 
prices can be regulated. The “ Laws of Trade ” 
are universal, and, at least among farmers, the 
Pro bono publico spirit rarely does much good. 
The real benefactor of the farming community 
is he who has been impelled to do a good thing; 
—to do it as well as it can be done ; and to keep 
on doing it well, because it pays him, to do it ;— 
not he who does the same sort of thing in a tol¬ 
erably good way, and a half-interested way, for 
the sake of the example and lesson it will be to 
his “brother farmers.” Brother Farmer is a 
very shrewd man. He doesn’t mind seeing flue 
colts, big eattle, and rousing barns, but he is not 
apt to “ go and do likewise” until he sees where 
the hard-money profit comes in. This principle 
applies to horse breeding. If our correspondents 
can make money by keeping thorough-bred stal¬ 
lions, (and they can,) they should by all means 
do if, and they will then do it as it should be 
done. If their chief motive is to benefit the 
community, they would probably fail to do that, 
and to get their money back too. Money, money: 
that is the soul of horse breeding, as of every 
thing else about the harm; and the greed for 
money is greater than all other forces in the im¬ 
provement of the world’s agriculture. It im¬ 
pels men to make improvements,—nearly all the 
real improvements that are made,—they make 
money by the operation; and when this becomes 
manifest, the whole community follows, more 
or less cautiously, in their wake, and lasting 
good is done. Those who adopt “ improved 
agriculture” for the sake of benefiting other 
people rather than themselves, rarely convince 
any body that the new way is the best, and sel¬ 
dom do an\'- good. If a farmer keeps a fine 
horse for the sake of the general improvement 
of the horses of his neighborhood, he does some 
good of course. If he keeps him in such a 
way as to make a lot of money by him, he will 
impel some neighbor to get a still better one to 
make more money—and so on, ad infinitum. 
The community gets the benefit twice over, and 
a new stimulus is given to the raising of fine 
horses. I know this is not the sort of patting- 
on-the-back that is usually given lo those who, 
from really admirable motives, spend their mon¬ 
ey for the advancement of agriculture, but it is 
the plain truth; and Mr. Brown does more ulti¬ 
mate good to the farming community every 
time he pockets $50 for the service of a mare bj r 
his thorough-bred horse, than Mr. Jones would 
do by letting an equally good horse stand for 
$5. Partly because Mr. Robinson is watching 
the result to see whether he can’t afford to buy 
a better horse than Brown’s, and stand him for 
$30, and partly because the horse will be belter 
kept and better shown up if he is kept for profit, 
than if kept for philanthropy. 
Another correspondent wants a “Thorough¬ 
bred stock horse, (Hambletonian preferred.)”— 
Old Hambletonian is not a thorough-bred horse, 
and his sons are not thorough-bred,—but all his 
speed and endurance are attributed to his large 
infusion of the blood of imported Messenger, 
who was a thorough-bred. The term “thor¬ 
ough-bred” applies only to English running 
horses of pure pedigree. There is no such 
thing as a thorough-bred Hambletonian, thor¬ 
ough-bred Morgan, etc. This same correspond¬ 
ent makes the sensible suggestion that if those 
having thorough-bred stallions to sell would ad¬ 
vertise them, they would find purchasers among 
the readers of the Agriculturist. 
A writer in the Country Gentleman recom¬ 
mends that mares be made to foal early in the 
season, so that they may have a full flow of milk 
during May and June, and that suckling 'mares 
be fed with oats until their colls are weaned. 
The advice is good, and well put. 
It is not a bad plan, under good treatment, to 
have mares come in in the autumn. Then they 
can be judiciously fed and well cared for in win¬ 
ter, and the food can be as nourishing as is de¬ 
sired. The flow of milk must be kept up until 
the pastures are good, and then the colt can be 
weaned on grass; but as grain will have been 
an important item of the dam’s food during the 
winter, it should have oats night and morning 
for at least a month after weaning, and better, 
long after that. On most farms it would not be 
convenient, and would perhaps be considered 
too expensive to adopt this course, as it is abso¬ 
lutely indispensable to its success that the mare 
have the best of food. For general practice, 
therefore, the colt should be dropped before the 
first of June; better, by the first of May ; and if 
extra horses are expected, they must not only 
be well fed from the outset, but the feed must 
be kept up, and they kept improving during the 
whole season. Every quart of oats given to the 
dam, (and so placed that the colt may eat too, if 
it will), will be repaid twice over in the value 
and usefulness of the future horse, provided no 
check be allowed. Oats must not be given one 
day and forgotten the next; if the pasture be¬ 
comes pinched, it must be supplemented with 
green forage or more oats, or both. Especially 
should water be always accessible. 
I hate recently sold a half-bred sucking colt, 
four months old, out of an ordinary farm mare, 
for $75. He lias probably had, in his milk and 
in what he has eaten, about $G worth of oats 
since he was born. Without these I am satis¬ 
fied he could not have been sold for over $50. 
He will be a cheaper purchase for the buyer at 
the price paid than he would have beeu without 
the oats at the other. I have thro® other young 
colts at pasture, and one other with a mare that 
is being used and fed with grain. The growth 
of this one is considerably better than that of 
those on grass alone, so much so, that I shall ar¬ 
range hereafter, to feed grain daily to all suck¬ 
ling mares in pasture. 
It would be curious indeed, to see how far the 
quality of horses (not thorough-bred) might be 
improved by substituting oats for blood for a 
number of generations;—and on the other 
hand, how far successive generations of thor¬ 
ough-bred horses would deteriorate under star¬ 
vation and neglect. The experiment would 
probably show that food and care have far 
greater influence on the development of the race 
than most of us would suppose. After four or 
five generations of such treatment, the dunghill 
horses would probably be much superior to the 
degenerate thorough-breds. Good blood and 
good nourishment combined are necessary, not 
only to the production of the best horses, but to 
the most profitable production of all horses. 
It is a generally accepted maxim in all stock 
feeding, that with growing animals, excessive 
nourishment is the most profitable. It takes a 
certain quantity of food to keep the machine 
running; so much to supply the waste through 
the lungs; so much for the waste of the mus¬ 
cles; so much to replace the discarded material 
of the bones; so much to keep the digestive or¬ 
gans distended. The consumption—the practi¬ 
cal destruction—of this amount of food occurs 
in all cases; as well when the animal remains 
' stationary as to growth, as when it was increas¬ 
ing in weight from day to day. It is from the 
assimilated food in excess of this waste that all 
profit comes. The rule is as good for colts as 
for beef cattle. If they are insufficiently fed, all 
that is taken up by the digestive organs goes to 
